Back to New York, Part 3

(I'd planned on making this only two parts, but part 2 ran a little longer than I'd expected and I wanted to give this enough space.) Normally I wouldn't have much to say about the final morning of a trip like this; we'd pack up, get something to eat, and head home. But this time we had a destination, and we had to be there on time. We had tickets to the observatory at the new World Trade Center building. (Neither of us went to the top of the original, and I'll always regret not doing so.)

It's roughly a ten-minute walk from the hotel to the eastern edge of the WTC site, but the observatory entrance is on the west side of the new building, which is situated at the western edge of the site, so it took a few minutes longer to get over to it. Upon entering the building we were sent down an escalator to a security screening much like at an airport, then through a winding passageway, decorated with mementos and artifacts from the construction process, to the elevators.

As we ascended, the walls of the elevator showed a video projection representing the growth of New York City from its founding to the present day, in the space of about a minute. That's all it takes for the elevator to rise to the 102nd floor. We were ushered into a long, narrow room to watch another video, this one maybe three minutes long, hyping New York in general. Then the screens pulled away for a look outside. After a few moments they closed again, and we were briefly confused: was that it?

But then they sent us through another door and down another escalator, to where the staff hit us with a hard sell for rental of a tablet device ($15) that would provide additional information about what we'd be seeing through the windows. Ignoring them, we moved around a corner to where some other staff tried to get us to pose for and buy a photo in front of a green screen; we waved them off and finally went down one more floor to 100, to the observatory itself. (I'm sure some of you might be interested in these extras, but that's not us.)

We deliberately chose the first timed entry of the day (9 am) thinking it wouldn't be quite as crowded, and that was a good choice. We had room to move around and take plenty of pictures without having to jostle with others for window space. Here's a sample:

There's a gift shop, of course, and a cafe if you want to hang around and enjoy the view a while longer. We left after about half an hour, which was more than enough time to make our way around the entire floor. Some of the photos had glare or reflections on the glass, so I can see the value of going in the middle part of the day when the sun is higher. (You can also go at night, though that costs more.)

Leaving the building, we made our way around to the memorial area where the original buildings stood. Even if we hadn't gone to the observatory, we would have made time to visit the site for this. Hundreds of trees have been planted in rows, but of course the focal point is the two voids, which have been made into fountains, with metal panels around the edges bearing the names of the victims. It would be easy to spend a couple of hours there, just moving along the sides and reading all the names. The letters are cut out of the metal, and here and there a flower had been inserted through a name, surely left by a relative or friend. Seeing the empty spaces where those buildings stood was a deeply emotional experience, one I didn't wish to compromise by taking photos.

(For those of you who may be wondering, the 9/11 museum is separate from the observatory. We did not visit the museum; I would be willing, but I don't think the Mrs. has any inclination to do so.)

We returned to the hotel to gather our things and check out. We took a cab back to retrieve the car, which was fine (let's hear it for a lower crime rate and an older vehicle). Before leaving we had one more thing to do: a stop at the Doughnut Plant on the Lower East Side, a short drive from where we'd parked. Unfortunately, the guy ahead of me got the last peanut butter and blackberry jam doughnut, so I had to settle for chocolate.

Back to New York, Part 2

Right, where were we? On Sunday morning of our weekend trip to New York, the Mrs. was tired from all the walking we'd been doing and wanted to get some extra sleep, so I got ready and left the room, not really knowing what I'd do but eager to get outside and enjoy a beautiful day. (We were fortunate to enjoy fantastic weather the whole time.) The hotel always has coffee available in the lobby (along with some sort of treat, like cookies or muffins) so I fixed a cup and went outside.

There is a patio-type area adjacent to the building that serves as a beer garden during warm weather. Being only April it wasn't yet operating, but the tables and benches were there, so I sat in the sun to absorb some vitamin D (with a hat on, of course) and drank my coffee. I saw a man walk by with a dog and watched them cross the street heading toward the East River, just a couple of short blocks away. I remembered reading that the city had constructed a path along the river's edge, so I got up and followed the man.

The path was full of activity, with bicyclists, joggers, and people walking dogs. I sat for a while watching people, got a smoothie from a guy in a little hut, took some photos, then walked north for a bit, to the site where South Street Seaport is being rebuilt (it was heavily damaged during Hurricane Sandy). At that point I decided to head back toward the hotel and started walking down Water Street. When I was almost back I remembered that Century 21 was about to open (11 on Sundays), so I turned west and headed in that direction.

C21 is like a TJ Maxx on steroids, but also a somewhat nicer store environment. The store adjacent to the World Trade Center site has been remodeled and expanded, and now covers six floors (plus an annex with shoes). It sort of reminds me of an old-time full-line department store, with a substantial housewares department on the basement level. They sell a lot of discounted designer clothing, and plenty of everyday stuff too. The store had just opened so it was nearly empty, and I spent most of an hour browsing. I got a text from the Mrs. saying she was up and getting ready, so I headed back over to the hotel and found her in the lobby getting coffee.

We had a brief conversation about brunch, and decided we needed our Junior's fix. Sometimes (depending on where you are and where you want to go, and what day it is) a cab ride is easier and quicker than taking the subway, and 20 minutes later we were being seated in a booth. After eating we took the subway back to Manhattan, heading for the Cooper Hewitt Museum, but first we decided to stop in Union Square and visit the Strand Bookstore. The Mrs. got a case for her work iPhone, and I got a book on the history of pop music.

We continued uptown to the museum, and later had a very pleasant dinner with relatives at Maya, a Mexican restaurant on the Upper East Side. They take the food a little more seriously than what's typical at many Mexican places, but still offer crowd-pleasing fare like tacos (mine had smoked brisket, pickled onions, and avocado).

After dinner we went over to 2nd Avenue to get a bus back downtown (that particular route stops right outside the front door of our hotel). When we got to the bus stop a bus was there, but all the passengers were getting off because the bus had been involved in a minor accident with a truck. When the next bus arrived a few minutes later, the driver waved everyone onto the bus without collecting fares. (This provided some balance to an incident earlier in the day when we were going back into the subway at Union Square. The entrance had no regular fare gates, just the vertical kind with the metal prongs. The gates took money off our Metrocards but wouldn't allow us through. Thanks, MTA!)

Back to New York, Part 1

When I mentioned going to New York a couple of weekends ago, I may have indicated that I would be writing something about it. So let's not let it get any further into the past before that happens...

It had been four years since I'd visited, and almost that long since the Mrs. and I had been there together, but that one was only an overnighter. After a visit in July of 2011, we'd concluded that we did not really need or want to spend time there again in the depths of summer. The Mrs. gets a day off for the Massachusetts holiday Patriots Day (commemorating the start of the Revolutionary War), so we decided to plan around that.

We drove down on Friday, making it out of the house around 8:30 am and getting onto the highway not long after, following a coffee stop. The ability to monitor traffic conditions and construction activity via smartphone app makes a big difference in car travel; we were able to avoid the seemingly perpetual construction on 95 southbound in Connecticut by switching over to the Merritt Parkway, which roughly parallels 95 a bit further inland.

Normally we go to whichever hotel we're staying at and check in so we can unload and leave our luggage, then we go and find a spot to leave the car. This can depend on where we are staying, but generally the Village and the East Village have worked out pretty well for us; we've also parked in Brooklyn. Street cleaning takes place either on Mondays and Thursdays or Tuesdays and Fridays, and often varies from one side of a street to the other, so signs must be checked carefully.

This time we had plans to meet up with a friend who was already on her way into the city from New Jersey, so the Mrs. wanted to find parking first. We wasted some time because I had her get off FDR Drive too soon, but after we got ourselves into the back and forth of the one-way streets in the East Village, we found an open space on Avenue C a few blocks from Houston St. We took our bags and walked down to Houston, where we got a cab to our hotel.

We've been to the original Bubby's in Tribeca a number of times, but they have opened a new location adjacent to the High Line elevated park and the new Whitney Museum, which was our Friday evening destination, so that's where we ate dinner Friday. Bubby's serves up comfort food and many varieties of pie. The Whitney is a multistory white box facing the Hudson River, with some of the upper floors turned at an angle. It has less character than the previous building on Madison Avenue, but I think it's trying to take a back seat to the artwork on display.

On Saturday we ventured to Staten Island via the ferry to see a former coworker of the Mrs. I'd thought she was going to meet up with us in Manhattan, but the Mrs. wanted the experience of riding the ferry and seeing what the island was like. (The answer to that is: New Jersey, because geographically it ought to be part of that state.) It also looks like a lot of the Boston area, which isn't that surprising. So, been there done that, probably don't need to go back.

We returned to Manhattan and headed for Midtown to do some shopping. Going to Uniqlo isn't as much of a big deal as it was back in 2007 when we first visited the Soho store (they've been offering online shopping in the US for several years and now have stores in Boston and the surrounding suburbs), but the gigantic 5th Avenue store is still something to behold and experience. Muji, another Japanese store, has several stores in Manhattan now, and the one across from the public library is also much larger than the original Soho store. It's deceptive from the street, because most of the space is on the lower level.

After satisfying our shopping urges, we hopped a bus and rode down to the East Village for dinner at Veselka, which has become one of our favorite spots. Open since the mid-1950s, Veselka is like a really good diner/neighborhood place that also happens to serve Eastern European favorites like pierogi and potato pancakes, because it was started by Ukranian immigrants. It's open all night and is lively and fun. Despite its proximity to NYU and Cooper Union, it doesn't seem to draw a large student crowd, but perhaps they don't show up until the wee hours.

After that we retreated to our hotel, and I'll resume with my Sunday morning activities...

Holiday Travel Memories

Many of us traveled somewhere to visit our families this week. The other day while I was volunteering, I was reminded that the building we were in was on the site of what used to be the old, decrepit bus station on St. James Avenue near Arlington Street and Park Square. It prompted me to reflect on more than three decades of going home for holidays.

For me, a big part of going to college was moving away from home. Like many young people I wanted to experience independence, but I didn't want to be prohibitively far away. Even as a freshman I met people who had to travel as far as California for the brief Thanksgiving break. But since I was from Rhode Island, home was just an hour's bus ride away. The station was primarily for Greyhound buses, but the Providence route was operated by a company called Bonanza.

That old bus station was grimy and run-down, and typically had an assortment of questionable people hanging around. But bus service to Providence ran pretty much hourly, so it was usually not necessary to spend any significant amount of time waiting in the station. The station in Providence was also not a place one would want to spend any time, but I knew that a ride would be waiting when I arrived, or I could walk a couple of blocks and catch a local bus the rest of the way.

A few years later, I discovered the pleasures of taking Amtrak from Boston to Providence. (This was still during the 1980s, prior to commuter rail service; later, after that service was established, it was initially not available on weekends.) Wider seats with more room to stretch out, freedom from traffic issues, the bar car—it was a much more hospitable ride.

But the train was more expensive than the bus, so I continued to use both. At some point (maybe the early '90s?) Providence got a new bus station, north of downtown and adjacent to route 95, so the bus drivers didn't have to navigate narrow streets. Originally the bus company operated a shuttle from the station to downtown for people who needed to make other transit connections, but I don't know if that is still in effect.

Boston's bus station moved also, to a spot adjacent to Dewey Square. I think it had something to do with the merger of two bus companies, because the terminal had been there for some time but I had never had occasion to use it. It was convenient to the subway at South Station, and to where I was working at the time, but it was just as dreary and forlorn as the one I had been using for years.

But time passes and things change. By the mid-1990s I was living with the Mrs. and we were driving to RI for holiday visits. Had it existed in the 1980s, commuter-rail service to Providence would have been very convenient; the recent extension to Green Airport would have been even more so, as my family's home is only about a mile from there. Today the bus terminal sits above the train tracks at South Station, with dedicated highway ramps for bus use. It's not fancy, but it's a far more pleasant place to wait for a bus than the ratty old Greyhound terminal.

Four-Wheel-Drive Luggage

I don't spend much time thinking about luggage. One reason is I don't travel that much, but also I tend to purchase a suitcase or two and use them for a long time. But I do have a tendency to be a bit behind the curve regarding features that make travel easier. My main suitcase has wheels, but it's not the "spinner" type with four wheels. I didn't think much of this until I tried rolling one around at a store, and then I understood immediately.

Two-wheeled bags are still somewhat prone to tipping over, especially if you happen to cross an uneven surface, like a curb. Also, the position of the handle causes your wrist to fatigue very quickly, because it's turned against its natural angle. (I solved that problem by getting a bag with a single extension pole with a rotating handle on top.)

As soon as you experience a four-wheel bag, you realize how much easier it is to maneuver, and the wrist-angle thing is eliminated too. I still have my two-wheel bag because it's perfectly good, but I have been contemplating getting a four-wheel spinner bag, because it would be nice to have something larger for the occasional longer trip.

One of the nicer bags I've seen, as well as one of the lightest, is from Muji, the Japanese purveyors of all sorts of interesting and useful things. Muji's only US stores are in New York and San Francisco, but they have offered online shopping for a while now. They are currently offering 30% off some of their hard-side four-wheeled suitcases: the 27-inch model that usually retails for $198 is currently $138, and the 29-inch is down from $238 to $166. These bags weigh nine and 10 pounds empty, respectively, so you don't have to worry as much about how much weight you are putting inside.

I don't know how long these are going to be discounted; there are other, similar-looking bags on the main luggage page that are not discounted, and are labeled as "new," so it looks like Muji may be clearing out the older stock, and if you're interested you should act quickly.

24 Hours

We went to New York over the weekend, but due to time and budget constraints we stayed over only one night this time. With such a short amount of time to spend, it's best to have a couple of things you want to accomplish and let the rest happen as it may.

In this case our primary goal was to eat. You can spend a fortune on some of the world's best dining in New York, but one of the things I love about the city is that you can have a great time and eat very well without spending a lot. If you're planning on visiting New York, these are places I recommend going.

Shake Shack will be coming to Massachusetts next year (specifically Chestnut Hill), but it's still fun to visit the original location in Madison Square Park. The food is delicious and fresh, and you can have a burger, fries, and shake for around $15. (I skipped the fries.) The park location is a walk-up stand with outdoor seating; on Saturday it was mostly sunny and around 47 degrees, still a bit chilly to eat outside, but there are heat-lamp fixtures to cut the chill. If that's not your thing, there are other Manhattan locations with indoor seating.

Over on Second Avenue in the East Village, a humble candy store that opened in 1954 evolved into Veselka, a homey 24-hour place serving "Ukranian soul food" (pierogi, goulash, stuffed cabbage) along with sandwiches and burgers, breakfast, desserts, and other good stuff. After three visits I can say this is a place I would be happy to eat at every single time I'm in New York. Authentic atmosphere can't be manufactured; it has to be earned, and Veselka is the real deal. They've opened a second location a few blocks away, but it's more of a bar scene (over 100 vodkas are offered) with a more modern, more expensive menu. I'm sure it's good, but I'll stick with the original.

On Sunday morning we headed for the Doughnut Plant on Grand Street. I love doughnuts, but I try to have them only occasionally, and there's little worse than having a bad doughnut and the accompanying feeling of having wasted the calories on one. You will have no such worry at the Doughnut Plant; in fact, this place is worth breaking any kind of diet you may be on.

It's a doughnut lover's paradise: the cake doughnuts are offered in flavors like pistachio and triple chocolate mint; the filled doughnuts are square (seriously); and there are smaller specialty "doughseeds" like creme brulee and chocolate hazelnut. Right now they're also offering doughnuts in seasonal holiday flavors like cranberry, marzipan, gingerbread, and panettone.

Nothing I've tried is too sweet, which makes me feel a tiny bit less guilty about them. I think the peanut butter and blackberry jam is a must-try; it's definitely my favorite so far. There's also a second location on the ground floor of the Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street, if you don't feel like heading all the way downtown.

Travel Thoughts

...and we're back. The traveling is over, for now. Our trips back from the west coast usually involve overnight flights. It's a bit of a hassle, but ultimately it's the simplest way to return. I would rather fly overnight and nonstop than have to deal with changing planes. However, I am almost never able to sleep on planes, so I have to plan on devoting the rest of the day to sleep and recovery. I hit my pillow around 6:30 am and woke up about seven hours later.

The San Jose airport is mercifully easy to deal with. It's not huge, but it's not so tiny that you have to disembark from the plane onto the tarmac. Everything is laid out very logically, and the signage is excellent. Even if you'd never been there, you could probably drive out of the rental garage and figure out which highway you needed to be on and how to find it.

Visiting northern California is always interesting to me. The climate is agreeable, the people are uniformly friendly (sometimes a bit too much so for a New Englander's comfort), and there are lots of old cars. And by "old" I mean cars that are 30, 40, maybe even 50 years old, being used as daily drivers. (The weather means rust just isn't the issue it is in the Northeast or Midwest.) This makes observing everyday traffic much more varied and colorful. Unfortunately the cars I saw were gone in a moment or two, so I wasn't able to get any pictures.

As for us, we were driving around in a rented Nissan Sentra, a car that can charitably be described as funny-looking. But it was comfortable enough and didn't use much gas, and when we got to the car return area at the airport, the check-in staffer told us to stay in the car and someone would drive us around to the terminal, so we didn't have to take the shuttle. It was a small gesture that made our lives a bit easier, but one I've never had another rental company offer, and it was appreciated.

I Must Be in the Front Row

I thought I was being clever by selecting seats in the first row of the plane. It never occurred to me that being in the first row means no seat in front of you under which to store a bag; everything has to go in an overhead bin until the plane has reached cruising altitude. Also, the little TVs are mounted on the partition, which is further away than the ones mounted on the seatbacks. Not an issue for most people, but a little too far away for me.

But other than those minor things, and a very bratty three-year-old one row back on the other side of the aisle, it was the easiest cross-country flight I've taken. We took off on time, there was no turbulence, and we landed 20 minutes early. Getting our luggage and the rental car took longer than the drive from the airport to the hotel. We checked in just after 9 pm Pacific time, eager for some rest.

The weather is beautiful, and we have a lot planned for the next several days. The Mrs. brought her laptop and the hotel has free wifi, so I'll check back in when I can.

Travel Prep

Travel is both exciting and tedious, simultaneously. It's great to be able to cross the continent in six hours or so, but while airborne it feels agonizingly slow. For this flight to San Jose we ended up paying a little more for "extra legroom" seats. It wasn't strictly necessary, as JetBlue's planes are already pretty gemerous with legroom, but there were only a few middle seats still available, scattered around the cabin. The extra-room seats were at the fromt of the plane, and came with some sort of expedited security (which didn't seem any faster to me) then there's the weather. Santa Cruz is fairly warm right now, so I had to dig into my warm-weather clothing storage for climare-appopriate stuff. I didn't even bother with a jacket, but I did pack a heavier canvas shirt that I can wear ad a layer if needed.

More Travel Ahead

That's right, we're off to visit the Mrs.' sister and family on Wednesday. It's been a couple of years since we've been out there, and about 18 months since they visited out here, so we're due. The Mrs. has a couple of weeks between the end of the semester and the start of her summer session, so we have a limited window of opportunity to work with.

Unfortunately things aren't working out so well with the Mad Men writeups this season. It's kind of crazy since I'm not even working right now, but I've had other stuff going on, and while I have generally been watching the episodes when they air on Sunday nights, I have not been able to get in the second viewing that I find I need to critique them effectively. The traveling hasn't helped either. I'll definitely so a summary of the season when it concludes.

Update Update

Sorry for the absence of posts the past few days. I've been in New York, and while my iPhone's onscreen keypad is fine for text messages and occasional emails, it's somewhat less than useful for longer-form typing. Alsp, I have to be honest: blogging hasn't been foremost in my mind during this time. It's been a very interesting and enjoyable trip, so I will definitely have material for when I get back.

Travel Plans

There are nice things about not working regularly: not having to get up early every day, not dealing with a commute twice a day, having free time for other interests and pursuits.

Next week I'll be heading back to New York. This trip is structured around a play I'm seeing. I started planning this back in January, before I knew I would be getting laid off, and since I'd already bought the theater ticket, which is nonrefundable, I decided to proceed.

Actually, planning for this trip started back in November, when I learned that this particular play would be performed again. It's being presented at the Public Theater by a company called Elevator Repair Service. The play is called Gatz, and the best description I can offer is that it is a performance of the entire novel The Great Gatsby. Every word in the book is spoken onstage over the course of about six and a half hours (plus two intermissions and a dinner break!).

I first learned about this show over two years ago, when ERS was performing it at the American Repretory Theater in Cambridge. I didn't find out about it until the final week of the run, and there were no tickets available anyway. When the Mrs. and I were in New York in November of 2010, they happened to be performing it at the Public Theater, but by that point the entire run was sold out, and the Mrs. had no interest in seeing it regardless.

Her lack of interest (perfectly understandable—not everyone is a fan of the book, and not everyone wants to sit in a theater for that long), along with the demands of her school work, led me to decide to make this trip solo. Others think I'm a bit nuts for wanting to see this show, but The Great Gatsby is one of the most important works of literature of the 20th century, and I've always had a deep affection for it. This is a very unusual performance, so when the opportunity to see it arose again, with time for me to plan for it, I had to do it.

(The movie version of the book that's coming out this Christmas, directed by Baz Luhrman and shot in 3-D, is probably going to be a disaster—I mean, Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, really?—but I'll have to see it too. The 1974 version wasn't good either, but at least casting Robert Redford as Gatsby made some sense.)

Of course, there's plenty else to amuse me in New York, including a couple of museum exhibits and (obviously) some shopping. I had a bit more trouble than usual getting a hotel room at a decent rate, probably due in some part to the Tribeca Film Festival, which runs through next weekend. When I picked the date to see the play I wasn't aware the festival would be going on, or I would have chosen a different weekend. These things can't always be helped, but I managed to get a reservation at a hotel that is convenient to the theater and a subway station. More to come...

Downtown Accommodations

I've been to New York City more than two dozen times in my middle-aged life. We used to stay with a friend of the Mrs. who lived in Brooklyn, but eventually she got married and moved to a smaller apartment (and now they have a toddler and live in New Jersey), so we started staying in hotels.

I've stayed in a dozen different hotels in Manhattan. Some were very nice; others were merely places with a bed and a bathroom. On a couple of occasions I was alone and only there for one night, so where I stayed didn't matter so much. Nowadays, though, I tend to make hotel choices pretty carefully. I like comfort and privacy.

This is preamble to me telling you about the hotel where we just stayed, which we both felt was the best overall hotel experience we have had in Manhattan. It's called Andaz; it's a stupid name, but a great place. Andaz belongs to Hyatt Hotels, and is meant to be their equivalent to boutique hotels like Starwood's W brand. We stayed at the W on Lexington Avenue several years ago, and found the room small and mediocre, plus there was a definite cooler-than-you vibe among both guests and staff.

The Andaz Wall Street is nothing like that. It's warm and welcoming from the moment you come through the revolving door. In fact, there's usually a hotel staffer there to turn the door for you, which is especially helpful when you are maneuvering luggage. There isn't a front desk per se; there is a counter in the middle of the lobby, but staff may be found on either side of it, or roaming around.

We arrived earlier than expected, but checking in early was no problem. We were checked in while sitting on a sofa off to one side of the lobby by a staff person with a small netbook computer. (I asked about iPads; he said they are getting them soon.) Then we got a brief introduction to some of the amenities Andaz offers at each of its hotels (at the moment there are only five locations; one of those is in London, the others are in Hollywood, San Diego, and in Midtown across from the New York Public Library).

There are free newspapers, and a little "pantry" area at one end of the lobby with some complimentary snacks (cookies, apples, candied walnuts), sparkling water, orange juice, and a barista station. Yes, there is a person there whose job is to make coffee for you. So instead of a gunky in-room Mr. Coffee or a vat of industrial-solvent coffee that's been sitting for who knows how long, you get a freshly made cup of coffee, espresso, tea—whatever you feel like. There's also free wifi throughout the hotel (as I'm sure you know, one of the most obnoxious gouges of the hospitality industry is that, typically, the higher-end the hotel, the more likely it is that you will have to pay an outrageous daily charge for wifi).

The clerk went to the desk to make our keys, then escorted us up to the room and showed us around, because there was more good stuff to come. The word "minibar" can send even the most seasoned business traveler into a cold sweat. Some hotels leave a bottle of sparkling water on the desk as a "welcome gift," but if you drink it they charge you $8. Some hotels have sensors in their minibars that record a purchase if an item is merely moved, when maybe you just had some leftovers you wanted to store in the little fridge. At Andaz the in-room snacks and drinks are free, except for alcohol. So you can relax and drink a bottle of water, eat a chocolate bar, nibble on some Terra chips.

There are a couple of cool tech bits: there is a control panel next to the bed for the lighting, with settings that adjust the various lights in the room accordingly: work, relax, night light, etc. There are also buttons to lower or raise the window covers, which is really cool and fun to watch.

And the room? The standard room is about 350* square feet, larger than some hotels' upgrade rooms. (Where we stayed back in November was a nice enough hotel, but there was barely enough space in the room to get around the furniture.) The added space makes a big difference. There was a nice comfy chair between the bed and the window, with a reading lamp next to it. The bed was extremely comfortable. There were cushions on the windowsill so you could sit and look out. The bathroom was huge by hotel standards, with a four-by-six-foot (yeah, I measured it) walk-in shower with one of those rainfall heads.

The location is only a brief drunken stumble from South Street Seaport, and there's a new (only partly open, at the moment) waterfront park along the East River in the same general area. A few short blocks to the south is Battery Park. The subway lines are to the west relative to the hotel, but the closest one is only two or three minutes away, and you can walk over to the others in less than ten minutes. (Wall Street is pretty short.) And the financial district is a lot less crowded on weekends than, say, Soho or Midtown. The hotel even hosts a farmer's market on Saturdays.

As more people are choosing to live in lower Manhattan, more amenities are appearing. The city's ubiquitous Duane Reade drugstores have been getting a serious makeover, with better designs and product selections, and things like fresh produce. There's one directly across the street from the hotel, but they also just opened a ridiculous, kind of awesome 22,000-square-foot store a couple of blocks up Wall Street, where you can get a shampoo or a manicure, plus there's a smoothie counter, a prepared food section, and a sushi bar. This stuff is geared toward the thousands of folks who work in the financial district, but visitors can certainly benefit from it too.

I got an excellent deal on this stay through Jetsetter, which is the travel arm of the flash-sale site Gilt (if you're interested, you can sign up here). I paid about half the standard rate, but you can frequently find decent rates on the travel site Oyster, along with lots of real photos, not ones taken by hotel-hired pros or PR people.

(*I got this number from the hotel's web site.)

Summer in the City

You may wonder why we would head to New York City at the height of summer, and you'd definitely be justified in wondering that. As it happened, a very good deal on a hotel presented itself, and with the Mrs. getting ready to embark on grad school in September, we weren't sure if/when we would be able to take another such trip, so we just decided to go ahead and do it. After a few short hours in the city, though, I found myself thinking that I probably want to avoid going back there during the hot months unless there's a good reason.

At home, my approach to dealing with the hot-and-humid is to be outside as little as possible, which, thanks to the advent of things like GPS bus tracking, works pretty well when commuting and working in a nicely chilled office. But in Manhattan, you tend to do a lot of walking, and even when it is possible to avoid the heat, you inevitably find yourself heading down into a subway station at some point, which is a lot like being parboiled in asphalt.

We spent a fair amount of time ducking into stores to cool off for a few minutes, but I was somewhat surprised to find that many places have rather feeble air conditioning. Nonetheless we persevered, going back to the hotel to take showers before heading back out to get sweaty again.

I thought about my previous visit, the day trip I took in March with the Proper Bostonian. It was just below 40 degrees that day, and walking down Fifth Avenue toward Washington Square we were pummeled by a stiff wind. I know this makes me somewhat odd, but I prefer the bluster and cold to July's slow-roasting.

Did You Miss Me?

We're back from our trip, so you can expect regular (whatever that means) programming to resume shortly. I had access to a computer at the hotel, but I guess I was more concerned with things like where we were going to eat.

Day Tripping

The Proper Bostonian and I had a fun time in New York on Friday, even though we were only there for about six hours and it was kind of cold and windy. When I went alone a year ago December, I took Megabus, but this time we took BoltBus. Both are fine, and the longer before traveling you can purchase your ticket, the better the fare.

I found the seats in the Bolt buses less welcoming; the shape of the bottom cushion and the imitation leather surface made it difficult for me to find the a comfortable seating position. Also, the Bolt buses make a rest stop about halfway between Boston and New York, which adds 15 minutes to the trip. Megabus used to leave from Back Bay Station, which would have been more convenient for both of us, but now they leave out of South Station along with Bolt, as well as the Fung Wah and Lucky Star buses.

After we'd made plans to go on Friday, I learned about a J. Press warehouse sale taking place last Thursday and Friday, only a few blocks from where the bus would let us out, so I figured it was worth a look. Neither of us ended up buying anything there, but I could have: there were some very nice, American-made suits in my size, and everything was 70% off the original tagged price. Selection was hit and miss; the PB found a suit she and her husband had seen a few months back in the Cambridge store, but not in his size. They have sales like this a couple of times a year, and unlike some of these events, this one had some seriously good deals. I think the thing to do in this case, if you plan to attend one in the future, is to be there as soon as it starts on the first day for the best selection.

Our wanderings took us down to the Flatiron area for lunch at Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop, then along 23rd Street to the second location of the Doughnut Plant on the ground floor of the Chelsea Hotel. (Yum.) We then stopped at Fishs Eddy and ABC Home, where The Conran Shop now occupies the lower level. I have fond memories of the old Conran's stores (somewhat like Crate & Barrel) that used to be on Exeter Street at Newbury (the site of the Exeter Street Theatre and later Waterstone's bookstore) and in the Porter Exchange building in Cambridge, so I was pleased to check out its new incarnation. (The store had been at a different location in New York, but I never made it there.)

Heading toward Soho for the obligatory visit to Uniqlo (maybe one of these days they'll start selling online here in the US), by pure coincidence we happened to pass the site of the Triangle factory fire, which occurred 100 years ago Friday. I'd been reading the coverage in the New York Times leading up to the centennial, but hadn't expected to pass by the building itself, and definitely hadn't expected to witness a memorial ceremony taking place on the sidewalk. (If you're interested in learning more about this terrible, tragic incident, which is considered one of the key events in the history of the American labor movement and the development of workplace safety regulations, this book is a good starting point.)

After visiting Uniqlo and a couple of other stores, we walked over to St. Patrick's Old Cathedral on Mott Street (now designated a basilica by the archdiocese of New York) to light candles, then we had to hurry back to catch the bus home.

Friday Away

By the time this has auto-posted on Friday morning, the Proper Bostonian and I will be rolling along the turnpike (courtesy of BoltBus) on our way to New York for a brief (same-day return) shopping excursion. It was her idea, but I don't need much convincing, especially when the words "shopping" and "New York" are used in the same sentence. More later...

Prep Time

It'll be nice to have Thursday off, but we're heading to New York on Friday, so it's not really going to be a day of leisure for me. There's laundry to be done, decisions about what to pack that are contingent on the weather (which is looking like it's going to be really nice), like how many pairs of shoes, what sort of outerwear, that sort of thing. And I need to make those decisions so I can decide which suitcase to use.

Mardi Gras Memories

Happy Mardi Gras! I had the good fortune to be able to attend the festivities back in 1989, but getting there wasn't so easy, so I thought it might make a good story for today...

A friend had been to New Orleans during the summer of 1988, and made some acquaintances who invited her to return for Mardi Gras. I got invited to go along, but because of my work schedule I could not travel with the others who were going, so I made arrangements to arrive a day or two later. It was suggested that I bring a sleeping bag, as the accommodations would be somewhat spartan.

My flight from Boston to New Orleans was on the Saturday before Mardi Gras, leaving around 6 PM and connecting through Dallas. For once, the weather here was not an issue; I went from work directly to the airport and got on my way easily. But just before I left, the southern part of the country was gripped by unseasonably cold temperatures. I had assumed it would be warm in New Orleans (compared to the weather at home), so I didn't really pack appropriate clothing.

When my flight landed in Dallas later that night, the temperature was 17 degrees. The one other time I'd passed through the DFW airport, during the previous summer on the way to attend a friend's wedding in Los Angeles, it was 107 degrees. Fortunately, I didn't have to venture outside either time, since I was changing planes within the same terminal. I passed by one of the doors leading outside and got a blast of the cold air, and that was more than enough.

The flight from Dallas to New Orleans left around 11 PM, and it was less than half full. (This was the time I was able to lie on my side across the three seats in the aisle and sleep, which I referenced in one of my recent posts). No one was able to pick me up at the airport, but I had been instructed to catch a shuttle van that ran to some of the downtown hotels (about a 30-minute ride, and the least expensive option) and catch a cab from a hotel to the house where we were staying. This was a good idea in theory, but getting dropped off alone, with heavy luggage (no wheels back then) and my silly sleeping bag, in the middle of the French Quarter, in the midst of teeming throngs of Mardi Gras celebrants, in the prime drunkness hours after midnight, was disorienting and a little unnerving.

These days it's highly unlikely I would find myself in a completely unfamiliar place without any resources, but I wasn't yet a seasoned traveler. I didn't have any maps, I didn't have any sort of guidebooks, and I didn't have any sense of which direction I needed to be going. The few taxis that I saw already had passengers in them. I didn't panic, but I was at a bit of a loss. But I did have enough sense to figure out that I would be better off getting away from the crowds.

After going a couple of blocks away from the center of the revelry, I was finally able to wave down a taxi. I gave him the address, and before long I was being dropped off. The other part of the instructions from my friends was that when I arrived, they would most likely be out at one of the big balls given by the krewes (the social organizations that sponsor and organize the Mardi Gras parades), but that someone would be at home to let me in. So I'm sure it's no surprise to you that no one was home.

So, just to recap, it's now around 2 AM, I'm standing on the porch of this empty house (which, while locked, has lights on in every room that I can see), I have no idea what sort of neighborhood I'm in, I'm tired, it's cold (not as cold as in Dallas, but maybe 35 degrees), and I don't have a winter coat. Now I admit, that part was really stupid. For whatever reason, I'd decided to travel wearing a shirt, sweater, and denim jacket. It's a long time ago, so I don't remember all the details, but it's possible we'd caught a slightly warmer spell at home, or I just didn't want to be burdened with a heavy outer coat.

But I did have my stupid sleeping bag. I'd brought another light coat with me, so I put that on on top of my other layers, got inside the sleeping bag, assumed a sitting position on the porch with my back against the house, and eventually fell asleep. My friends and the people who lived in the house rolled in around 5 AM. They assured me that when they had left, there were other people still at the house so they thought I'd be able to get in.

The rest of the trip was great; by that evening I'd forgotten all about my unexpected, improvised camp-out.

Security Advisory

On our trip home from California, the TSA confiscated my pocket knife. It's my own fault, because I forgot to take it off my keys and put it in my checked bag before going through security. But the guy was kind of jerky about it, as though it was a given that I had malicious intent with my tiny little knife and scissors, or I'd just pulled a flask of some sort of bioweapon out of my pocket.

But here's the thing: on our outgoing trip, nobody noticed that I had it. When I took off my shoes and put them through the scanner along with my coat and messenger bag, I didn't see any of those little trays that they use to hold your keys and change and stuff, so it didn't trigger the reminder to take my keys out of my pocket. I went through the scanner and nothing happened. No alarm, no flashing lights, no secondary screening. Nobody noticed, which made the confiscation on the way home that much more aggravating.

It's been my experience over many years of traveling that the things that security claims set off the scanner--keys, belt buckles, watches--do not in fact do so. So what does that mean regarding, you know, actual weapons like knives or guns?